Are you attending “n” number of job interviews but failing miserably? These might be the reasons

Lack of Preparation – Practice makes you perfect. Do not attend even a single interview without proper preparation. Prepare yourself thoroughly before facing an interviewer. Right from applying for a job till post interview follow ups, a great deal of preparation is required.

Read Job advertisements (JD) carefully

Pick the job related keywords mentioned in JD

Include those keywords in your CV

Re-read your CV before sending it to recruiters

Research about the company you apply for

List few questions to ask your interviewer

Telephonic interviews are effective screening process. Take them seriously.

Follow up with recruiter on interview status

Dressing Miserably – Many get it wrong when it comes to dressing up for interviews. Have a separate pair of dresses especially for interviews. Keep away from cool quotient, your interviewer is not interested in hippie dresses or casual attires. Be tidy. Match your belt with shoe color. Never attend an interview without shoes/socks. Light color dresses are always the best shot. Say NO to flashy colors and flowery designs.

Yes/No Answers – Interviewer shoots questions to assess an employee’s attitude, ability, flexibility, decision making skills, responsiveness, fit to organizational culture, subject matter expertise, technical knowledge and so on. Show your expertise in words, have detailed but to the point conversation with your interviewer. Avoid yes/no answers to land in your dream jobs.

English Communication skill plays a vital role in sculpting an individual’s career path.

Globalization made most of the foreign multi nationals to step in Asian countries for setting up production and outsourcing units. Foreign companies offers millions of job offers to local talents which demands good English communication skills. Being ignorant of systematic English learning process, ESL (English as Second Language) individuals find it difficult to speak fluent English.

Here is a simple guide to speak effective English.

Follow “L S R W” concept

Listen: Listen to English language extensively. The more you listen, the more it gets into you. Remember how you learnt your mother tongue? It is through listening (observing) your parents/family/neighborhood speaking that language. Media is a great source to listen good English. Tune into to international news channels, listen to the reader at least for 30 minutes a day. In due course try to mimic the news reader.

Speak: Start speaking English with your close circle of friends. Ask your friends to rate your English communication skills at the beginning. Take their advice on the area’s that need improvisation. Constantly work on improving your grammatical skills and vocabulary. Initially you might stumble to speak fluently but don’t give up because you cannot run a marathon without taking a first step forward.

Read: Be choosy in selecting a quality English daily. Dedicate at least 30 to 45 minutes a day for newspaper reading. You need not to hurry in reading the entire newspaper at a stretch. Focus only on a single article or a single page, read slowly. Starting from headlines, try to understand what the article/paragraph is speaking about. Highlight the words you couldn’t understand, obtain meaning of those words through dictionary or thesaurus. Now, re-read the article.

Write: Practice writing small sentences then small paragraphs, essays, articles. Start a blog. Dedicate 15 to 30 minutes a day to write anything under the sun (initially) or choose a niche you are passionate about. Ensure to be a regular blogger. You are not blogging to pass time or make money. Always remember “you are blogging to make your writing better”

We, humans are blessed with innate passion and talents. Each one of us is good at something.

Knowing what we are good at and fine tuning it is the key to progress.

Understanding what you are good at pushes you to become good to great.

Think in silence; write down the things you are passionate about.

You might be good in singing, dancing, drawing, teaching, analyzing, leading a team, networking, helping people, solving problems, communicating, organizing an event, painting, playing music instruments, cooking, persuading, hacking/debugging computers and a lot more.

Prioritize your “Good At” List.

No idea how to prioritize? Here is a little help:

Is it what you always think about, dream about, read about?

Will you be ready to put needed effort, time and training to become good to great at it?

Would you enjoy doing it even after 10 years?

If your answer is YES to all 3 questions, Congratulations! You’ve found what you are good at!